


luctu morte

by n_u_t_m_e_g



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Descriptions of gore, M/M, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Suicidal Thoughts, The Anchor (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 08:22:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13454259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n_u_t_m_e_g/pseuds/n_u_t_m_e_g
Summary: Lavellan mourns his own death as The Anchor gets worse.





	luctu morte

Lavellan can no longer feel anything but the pain in his hand.

After he closed The Breach for the final time, the mark  _ hurt. _ It bled for days. It bled and bled and  _ bled _ \- it would soak through every bandage the second it was applied. The moment it stopped Hanin started to wear a glove, afraid of the pain and the blood again.    
He’d expected the pain to fade, and for some time, it did. But then, the mark started to glow brighter, and the pain returned.    
At first, it felt like a cramp- tight and searing. Then it began to sting, and ache like a fresh, open wound. Then it was like someone was taking a blade and flaying his hand apart, peeling up the skin, the fat, fiddling with the cords of muscles, playing with the viscera and blood.   
For a while, he could stand it. He kept it a secret, moving on with his daily duties, only allowing himself to suffer every-so-often. 

Then, it became  _ unbearable. _ The pain was like nothing he’d ever felt in his life. But he held it together, and only cried when no one could see him. He only screamed when no one could hear him. And he waited for it to stop. 

But it never did.    
But Hanin… he is a good liar. How was he supposed to tell his friends that his arm was killing him? How is he supposed to say he is dying? 

So he doesn’t. He keeps it a secret from everyone. And one day, he can’t feel anything but the pain in his hand.    
It’s two weeks before the Exalted Council. Orlais and Ferelden rally to have him hung; to have the Inquisition end. And Hanin wakes up, and when he looks at himself in the mirror, he can hardly recognize himself anymore. His hair is a mass of knots and his face has gone gaunt, the shadows beneath his eyes have gone black. He can’t brush his hair. He can hardly lift the arm above his shoulder. He suddenly realizes he has no idea what he used to look like.    
And that morning, Hanin screams. He screams until his throat is raw, but no one comes, because no one hears.

So he stands in front of the mirror, and stares at himself. The mark, normally obscured by a glove and long sleeves, is bright and insidious against his bare skin. Green veins of light swirl up from the mark on his palm, winding up like a poison high into his shoulder, and the thin, thread-like vines end at his neck. But he can see that it’s spreading. The lines go further every day.    
For a brief moment, Hanin thinks about throwing himself off of the balcony, and into the snow below on the mountain. He imagines the fall, he imagines hitting the rock, he imagines dying. He thinks about how long it’d take his friends to find his body. He thinks about Dorian in Tevinter, hearing about his death through a letter.

The pain is radiating up into his face, now, and Hanin finds that there are tears dripping from his tired eyes.    
If people see him like this, they’ll know something is wrong. He’s kept the mark a secret for this long. He  _ must _ go on for just a little while longer. 

So Hanin cleans his face, and cuts his hair off. 

He lets it pile around his feet, long, black tresses falling to the stone floor.   
He covers the mirror with a sheet, and mourns for his own death. Because at this point he might as well be dead- and soon, he knows, he will be. 


End file.
